What do you think a good translation is? How do you rate a translation job as good or bad? To answer these questions you have to agree on some criteria. I have tried to simplify this task and chosen two approaches - a simple one, with just a few clear criteria and a more complicated one, with more but also clear criteria. Here they are:
1. First, some simple and pragmatic criteria:
- knowledge of the grammar of the source language and knowledge of vocabulary, as well as good understanding of the text to be translated; - translator's ability to reconstitute a given text (source-language text) into the target language; - translation must capture the style and atmosphere of the original text as much as possible.
2. Second, some less simple but also working criteria:
- a good translation is easily understood; - a good translation is fluent and smooth; - a good translation conveys, as much as possible, the meaning of the original text; - a good translation distinguishes between the metaphorical and the literal; - a good translation reconstructs the cultural/historical context of the original; - a good translation makes explicit and understandable what is implicit in abbreviations;
A good translation cannot come from a bad translator, and a good translator needs a set of good professional skills and strategies.
Translation skills:
Any translator, and a novice one especially, should own or should develop a number of basic, fundamental skills, including reading comprehension, researching, analytical and composing skills.
Reading comprehension: The first phase of any translation process consists of reading the text. This activity falls under the competence of psychology, because it concerns the perceptive system. This is, for the most part, an unconscious process, and a multi-level one. While we are translating sentences, we have a map of the full original text in our minds and, at the same time, a map of the text we want to produce in the target language. So, while looking at the trees (sentences) we must not forget about the forest (the full text). This skill does not come out of the blue. It is the result of a wide personal culture and rich life experience. For this reason, novice and student translators can be advised to attain some basic reading comprehension like:
- reading for gist and main ideas; - reading for details; - identifying the meaning of new words and expressions; - identifying the writer's style - literary, scientific, technical, informative, persuasive,etc.; - identifying cultural references in the choice of words;
Researching skills:
The simplest advice to a novice translator is: if you don't know the meaning of a word, look it up in the dictionary. Easy to say but hard to accomplish. Why? Because there are many different kinds of dictionaries: a bilingual dictionary, a dictionary on a historical basis, dictionaries of current English, dictionaries of idioms, specialized dictionaries (dictionaries of common errors, dictionaries of idiomatic usage, slang dictionaries,technical dictionaries), encyclopedic dictionaries, dictionaries of neologisms, and monolingual dictionaries. The choice of the best or the most appropriate dictionary depends on the style of the original text, the specialization of the translator and on the user of the translation. Professionals know there are two basic types of translation users - lay users and specialist users.
Novice translators and student translators are also recommended to use some basic researching tips:
- bilingual dictionaries for looking up the meanings of new words; - monolingual dictionaries to check the usage of the new words in the source language and in the target language; - related encyclopedias and glossary lists for specialized terms; - software dictionaries if necessary and available; - specialized magazines and journals helping with the text, particularly when technical.
Analytical skills: The translation process is characterized by an analysis stage and a synthesis stage. During analysis the translator refers to the original text in order to understand it as fully as possible. The synthesis stage is the one in which the original text is projected onto the reader. Translators are advised to use the following strategies at the analysis stage:
- Identify beginnings and endings of ideas in the text and the relationships between them; - Identify the "best" meaning that fits into the context; - Identify the structure in the Target Language that "best" represents the original;
As a novice translator, or a student translator, you are invited to make use some of the following basic strategies:
- use correct word order as used in the target language; - use correct sentence structures as used in the target language; - transmit the ideas of the text in clear sentences in the target language; - rephrase certain sentences to convey the overall meaning translated; - make changes to the text as a whole to give it a sense of the original without distorting the original ideas.
The skills and strategies presented above relate to the basic level and are interesting for beginners and students. However, advanced and professional translators may find them useful as well.
I would not commit myself to the claim that these requirements and recommendations are also important for interpretation and interpreters. However, I would not also object to such an interpretation.
Author:
Petar Petrov
http://balkanfuture.blogspot.com
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